Florida Attorney General says he is putting the state’s woke companies ‘on notice’

Florida’s new attorney general, one of the youngest in the state’s history, says he is working to make his state a place where "woke" ideologies like Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) are unwelcome. 

"In my first week in office, we filed a lawsuit against Target based on some of the radical ideologies that they were pushing forward in their stores," Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier told Fox News Digital. 

"Many months ago, they rolled out a transgender children's clothing line. And yes, companies have some free speech rights, but when you are a publicly traded company, you have fiduciary duties to shareholders." 

Uthmeier was appointed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to fill the vacancy created by former Attorney General Ashley Moody, whom DeSantis selected to replace former Sen. Marco Rubio when he became secretary of state. 

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On Feb. 20, Uthmeier filed a class action lawsuit with America First Legal, and law firms Boyden Gray and Lawson Huck Gonzalez, against Target for the company’s alleged intentional deception of investors regarding its "radical LGBTQ activism."     

The lawsuit says that Target shareholders lost tens of billions of dollars and that the company "actively misled" investors, claiming that they would look out for the possible risks of their DEI and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) policies, but actually only tracked the response of left-leaning activist groups.

Part of Target's Pride merchandise included an adult one-piece swimsuit featuring a "tuck-friendly construction" and "extra crotch coverage." The retailer also reportedly sold chest-binders. 

Following the rollout of the merchandise, the store's market value fell to $57.7 billion from $74 billion.

"Here in Florida, our state pension fund that provides the retirement for our teachers and first responders took a massive hit when Target decided to engage in this social ideology," Uthmeier said. 

"They faced a serious backlash in the market, and they lost over 10 billion in value in 10 days," he added.

"So this isn't right," Uthmeier said. "We're going to hold companies like this accountable. If you have a fiduciary duty to the state of Florida, and we're investing in you, and we're looking out for the retirement of our state workers, we're going to make sure that you get back to the business of doing business." 

Guardrails are being put in place to keep this from happening again, the attorney general said.

"We started a corporate accountability and oversight fund with over 20 million dollars that's going to make sure again that we're investing in businesses that are engaged in fiduciary responsibilities and are making money for the investors," he said.

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Uthmeier said companies in Florida should be "on notice."

"I'll tell you we are watching, and we are not afraid to take action if we believe a correction needs to be made," Uthmeier said. 

"We are working, and we released a policy today to announce that we are not going to allow the state to do business with any law firms that are advancing unlawful ESG and DEI policies. Many of these policies violate our civil rights laws in Florida. They are not reflective of equal justice under the law. In fact, they are discriminatory. So we've put law firms on notice." 

According to Uthmeier, such law firms are at fault for promoting DEI and ESG. 

"It's firms that seem to be pushing a lot of these companies to adopt these policies," Uthmeier said. "These policies are wrong. We're not going to allow them to continue, and we're certainly not going to be giving business to law firms that want to engage in DEI and ESG." 

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Fox News Digital reached out to Target for comment, but did not immediately receive a response.